The spent force, the
bruised reed, the smoking flax, the etiolated plant, the mildewed roses, all
speak one language. Hope has been dashed. Exuberance has been drained away.
Strength is in recess. The bright and happy future is clouded with dimness, and
in some cases, has flown away.

Sir Winston Churchill did
not want to preside over the "dissolution of the British Empire", it appears; but he did.
Europe did not 'need' two devastating World Wars in ONE CENTURY, as if madness
were not enough, but it must dwell like the maniac of Gadara, amongst the
tombs, naked and raving. Russia was not helped by its 72 year
sojourn in a political swamp worse than the deprived swamps and ices of Siberia, to help it from the afflictions of
the Tsars; but it got it, and put many of its citizens in just such a lostness,
a state depraved, deprived and departed from all truth and godliness. It led to
its utter humiliation, this which so high, had told God to depart, and to take
His bags and baggage with Him. To what, then, in their lostness did they
appeal, but to the wealth of the US (not least) via loans and credits,
either directly or via agencies largely reliant on it, or nations with a
freedom like its own.

Many a young life starts as
roses in Spring, and ends as mildewed strangulation, powder and not fragrance,
dulness and not delight. Many a mid-life becomes misguided, disoriented and
rigid, unable to relax or to use maturity for the marvels with which it might
have been endued. The world does not lament. It is beyond it; for the world
itself is mildewy.

Again
and again, nations will pick up the laurels, and begin to proceed with some
sense of mission, as the US in the mid-nineteenth century, Britain under Elizabeth I, or Victoria. The
arts, science, invention, discoveries will flourish. Then the sedateness of
middle years, for nation as for man, will often contrive to overcome the thrust
of reality; the form of religion comes increasingly to replace the reality, the
worship of God to bend to the worship of wealth, success, prestige, power or
even so lowly a creature as comfort and security. Shuddering with fear, they
may come to seek merely or else, even first to survive, as if life were a
byproduct, and its continuance the sole point of its existence.

ABORTION OF THE CYNICISM OFCORRODED
CORRUPTION ...

and the CHALLENGE TO SINCERITYin the
SEVERANCE of SQUALOR

That,such a concept,
however is merely and truly blind.

Do you drive in order to
drive, or to arrive ? Does not the very wind have direction ? Is your purpose
to continue, squashed by circumstances, fondled by fate, or else blinded, the
cousin of chance and the soup of a moral slush, a constantly changing,
chameleon solution, varied to meet the needs of the moment ? Or is it to be
subjected to ethical squalor, personality modalities, the feeble lights of
fashion or else fathered by the desultory, fostered by society, born of your
own pride or pomp, pretension or pettiness ? Are the intelligences so roundly
asserting themselves in every corner of creation, a fact not lost on Sir Fred
Hoyle, and inveterately apparent, both logically and empirically (cf. SMR pp. 211ff., 252Aff., 252Eff., Repent or Perish Ch. 7), and is the array of contrivances which
inhabit it like petals on a flower, to be met by the inanity, urbanity or even
spiritual insanity of purposelessness ?

Is this your coin ? is it
with this that you pay for you day ? If you do, you will pay indeed, and pay
deeply for the very betrayal of life itself! (cf. That Magnificent Rock Ch. 6, Stepping out for Christ Chs. 2, 7-10, Spiritual Refreshings
Chs. 13,
16, Wake Up World! ... Ch. 6, Sparkling
Life Ch. 8). So
the world, inhabited by many individuals, in many groupings, with many voices,
does betray itself like a donkey kicking in that stubborn, stiff-legged way so
dear to it, braying with cacophonies of philosophy so hideous, that one can
readily understand the very creation of the donkey from this angle alone. As
parody and satire alike of man, it is magnificent! It has, as the wine lovers
would say (they are welcome to ALL of the poison that lurks - cf. Proverbs 23),
it has nose!

SO now the September 11th.
affair has become something of a political harassment! President Bush with his
derring-do feel in his war on terrorism, and virtual re-definition of good and
evil, is making the war against 'evil' to be a partnership with much that IS
inherently evil, antichristian and given both to cruelty, force in faith and
oppression! This
evil is AGAINST 'evil'! This is the way of the world: use what you can to get
what you need! Define as needed. Follow need.

Need however for what ? For
a civilisation which can continue in freedom, with freedom lovers everywhere,
and do its thing as the mood, caprice, will or desire may strike its heart ? In
one of the Psalms, there is the sensation of Psalmist (88:5), in his
persecution and humiliation, that he is "free among the dead". In his case, there is a complexity
of issues issuing in this waterfall from brightness of sunlight on the top of
the hill, to the dark depths beneath in the rocky shade.

"I am counted with those who
go down to the pit.

I am like a man who has no
strength,

adrift among the dead,

like the slain who lie in the
grave..."

"My soul
is full of troubles," he laments. However, this slippage into some degree of spiritual
squalor, apparently jointly derived from persecution, with a measure of social
ostracism and weakness, is not left to continue in its dark recesses. "Let my prayer
come before You!" he
cries in the still twilight dimness of his heart. He trusts in God: what then
is this which seeks to engulf him! "You have put away my acquaintance far
from me, You have made me an abomination to them." The situation is beginning to look
grave indeed. "But to You I have cried out, O LORD, and in the morning my
prayer comes before You."

Thus, in Pslam 89, the next
item in that sequence listing these songs, there is a response, certainly from
another writer: but as if in an opera, the one singer follows the other, and
the message of the script becomes clear.

This is one of the great
Messianic psalms, and what less is needed for such "affliction"
as seen in Heman the
Ezrahite, in Psalm 88. Only the Messiah will do! We at once find the "covenant" made with "my chosen", with King David. First, however,
we must realise that the LORD from whom all comes, is available, omnipotent and
wise, able to act and acting on His own grounds, according to His own
principles, making His own premisses of which the covenant is an apex for man. "I have sworn to
My servant David, Your seed will I establish forever, and build up your throne
to all generations."

WHO is this who swears ? It
is He of whom it is declared, "Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to
the LORD ?" That
of course in one step is the end of the Jehovah's Witness heresy, for of Christ
we know He is the exact image of the Almighty (Hebrews 1), whereas it is HE who
has NO ONE LIKE HIM! Nothing is in His dimension, far less exactly so. Can the finite mimic the infinite
? Is the immeasurable to be compared with the measure of man! It is only when
the immeasurable takes on the format of man, that He exhibits His exact
likeness! (cf. Biblical BlesssingsCh.
13, A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 12). Forsaking this, man forsakes
all there is, for when you doctor God, it is no more God, but an idol! Small
wonder! Paul even in his own day, accuses some of making another Jesus, another
Gospel and having another Spirit! (II Corinthians 11:4).

God is the doctor.
'Doctoring' God is mere imagination!

Not thus is the revival of
hope to be found, for in the hopelessness of this world, only God is adequate.

To the Psalm again, then.
Now in terms of the covenant, proceeding from none less than the ONLY GOD, we
find this:
"I have laid help on One who is mighty! I have exalted one chosen out of
the people. I have found My servant David..." So do we come to the seed of David
according to promise, as in II Samuel 7:10ff., and Psalm 72. He is to REDEEM
His people, as God has shown would be His very own personal work,
in Ezekiel 34 and Hosea 13:14, Zech. 12:10. It would be costly, and involve a
piercing and a contumely, a capricious killing and a deadly wrath against
Himself in the process (Isaiah 52-53, Psalm 2).

This is the One who would
be the ONLY SAVIOUR, when GOD HIMSELF is the ONLY SAVIOUR (Isaiah 43:10-11,
53:6-12, Isaiah 41-42). This is He whom the Gentile as well as the Jew must
find, or else find nothing. To turn to another, any other, is to be
equipped with due judgment for such an exploit in travesty of truth, defiance
of deliverance and ridicule of remedy (Psalm 2, 110).

This One, sent from God,
the Expression, the living and eternal word of God, expressing His source
(Hebrews 1, Micah 5:1-3, Zech. 2:8, Psalm 45, Isaiah 48:16), "He shall cry to
Me, You are My Father, my God, and the rock of My salvation!" (Psalm 89:26). This Christ did, even
at the Cross, declaring as He bore the sin which separates (Isaiah 59:1-2), "My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me!" just as it was shown that He would do in the long-term prophecy of
Psalm 22(Joyful Jottings25).

In this forsaking, however,
in due recompense for the sin which He freely bore for the sake of those lost,
who should use His redemption, call for His salvation, and in faith find it, He
gives hope.

If however, God is against
you, do not worry about who else is, or who is for you! That is the end. That
is finis, unless by the grace of God, you repent and believe in Him
indeed. You may squirm, if a nation, for a century or two, but it is the end.
God has set times and limits for the nations, if by any means they should find
Him (Acts 17:24-27). It is all worked out, and it is all worked in. In this "One who is
mighty" there is
deliverance for spirit and life, liberation for the purposes of God, for the
strength of the Almighty, for the milk of truth for nurture, and the meat of
reality for enduement. With Him ? "If God be for us, who shall be against
us!" (Romans
8:31).

What then does
disapprobation, derision, disavowal, denigration, slander, suffering or duress
matter ? Look at Paul's words in I Cor. 4:9ff.. Let us hear some of these:

"For
I think that God has set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to
death: for we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels and to men. We
are fools for Christ's sake ...

"Even to
this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked and are buffeted,
and have no certain dwelling place; and labour, working with our own hands;
being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we
entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all
things to this day. I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved
sons, I warn you...

"Now
some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to
you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of those who are
puffed up; but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but
in power. What do you want ? shall I come to you with a rod , or in love and in
the spirit of meekness ?"

The apostle then proceeds to
expose some the foul sin into which some in that church had fallen.

It is certainly refreshing
to learn of such a supervisor as this (cf. I Peter 5), that he is not claiming
ever higher superannuation, and higher exemptions, more place and scope, higher
respect and the like, demanding that nothing demeaning be ever said about him!
It is good to see sincerity isn clothes that match it, and humility in words
which neither deny the function he has, nor assert his own person. In this is
the love of Christ exhibited. He TOOK THE CROSS, and His followers must
TAKE UP their own!

Surrounded with thorns,
though the Christian way undoubtedly is, what gardener is seriously concerned
about these, when the roses come, those exquisite creations, their nostalgic
perfumes seeming a distinct act of nobility in olfactory creation, incredible
until experienced, their subtleties of shade and their crisp but unassertive
surfaces like poetry in petal, architecture in botany, and with a passion
design florIbund, skipping over all restraint, yet in residual restraint,
liberal in loveliness, unattended but presented ex gratia.

Yet it requires some care
in cultivation, and Paul was willing to pay that price.

Elsewhere,
he says this:
"Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it, so that He might
present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot ,or wrinkle, or any
such thing: but that it should be holy and without blemish" - Ephesians 5:25b-27.

WHO CARES ABOUT THORNS! PROVIDED THERE IS THE
ROSE ...

Who cares about thorns,
when he has the truth ? or what is the difficulty with travails if you have
peace ? or what is the difficulty about sacrifice if GOD has sacrificed to gain
you, and gaining you, give to you the life which is neither parody nor
caricature, neither slander personified nor purposeless in retreat, but wisdom
and brightness that does not, because it cannot die, for it is infilled with
the very life of God, the guarantor and the giver!

This is what LIFE IS FOR -
the Maker who made it. Is it then so very difficult to realise that in
seditious separation from its Maker, in schematic severance from the
Intelligence that formed you, schismatic divergence from the Creator who MADE
you, the Redeemer who loved you, there is mere continuance, or the means of
life, or the good opinion of your fellows, or some other trifle. If you live by
such things ? they may change at the whim and mood of cowards, or the fire of
passion! You are then but rubbish. What pride to establish yourself apart, and
ignore both the power and the love of the God who formed you.

Now in the USA, there is a national crisis of a
somewhat sallow sort. WHAT IF in the very midst of human power and contrivance,
liberty and opportunity (even to make male female and vice versa in society, or
to make mockery of both by slender transitions, horribly induced, imperfectly
produced, a sort of biological rebellion), opportunism and power, yes of
initiative and resources, the lonely wolf should come, not in from the wilds of
the North, easily shot, but adroitly adapting the very vulnerabilities of your
regime, to its utterly depraved destructiveness ? Why not ? If you take
liberties with God, do you expect that no liberties will be taken with
your liberty! If you presume to harass reality, do you really imagine that it
will not harass you, in turn ? or even out of turn - if your read Proverbs 1,
you will begin to realise the enormity of the situation!

"Wisdom
calls aloud outside;She raises her
voice in the open squares.She cries out in
the chief concourses,At the openings
of the gates in the cityShe speaks her
words:

'How
long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?For scorners
delight in their scorning,And fools hate
knowledge.Turn at my
rebuke;Surely I will
pour out my spirit on you;I will make my
words known to you.

'Because I
have called and you refused,I have stretched
out my hand and no one regarded,Because you
disdained all my counsel,And would have
none of my rebuke,I also will
laugh at your calamity;I will mock when
your terror comes,When your terror
comes like a storm,And your
destruction comes like a whirlwind,When distress
and anguish come upon you.

'Then they
will call on me, but I will not answer;They will seek
me diligently, but they will not find me.Because they
hated knowledgeAnd did not
choose the fear of the Lord,They would have
none of my counselAnd despised my
every rebuke.

'Therefore
they shall eat the fruit of their own way,And be filled to
the full with their own fancies.For the turning
away of the simple will slay them,And the
complacency of fools will destroy them;But whoever
listens to me will dwell safely,And will be
secure, without fear of evil.' ”

Is it not repeatedly found so
? A nation turns from the Lord in its sophistication, wisdom and
self-assurance, and is humbled by powers that demean, eating the fruit of its
own follies, reminded forcibly of its cant, and its hypocrisy, its pride and
its presumption. God dealt just thus with Israel in its day!

Thus not only is this so,
but Moses forecast the behaviour and its consequence, long befor,e in this very
dimension, before it came to pass! That, it is sovereignty indeed, wisdom that
surpasses, unexampled and divine. Here then from Deuteronomy 32 (emphasis
added):

"Of
the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful,And have
forgotten the God who fathered you.And when the
Lord saw it, He spurned them,Because of the
provocation of His sons and His daughters.

"And He
said: ‘I will hide My face from them,I will see what
their end will be,For they are a
perverse generation,Children in whom
is no faith.They have
provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God;They have moved
Me to anger by their foolish idols.But I will
provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation;I will move
them to anger by a foolish nation.' "

Can you expect the Lord to be
your national Shepherd, when your nation is openly combined with Moslem
idolatries ? (cf. Lord of Life Chs. 3, 4, 5). It is one
thing to HAVE many nationalities and religions, and to be gracious in the name
of liberty, to those who want to run their lives, within the law of your land,
in this way or that. It is quite another for your President to congratulate an
antichristian religion on its good teachings, and to unite with several
exemplars of the same, in the name of a war "against evil". This has
already compromised the reality of God to the uttermost, not making HIM ONLY
the trust. To be sure, the populace have liberty, and a State apportioned religion
is not the point. It is a State congratulated religious situation other than
Christ, which is the perversion of purity, and the defilement of the divine
name. It is a war on an evil which is NOT the evil, with MUCH OF the evil, as
allies which is merely a re-run of I Kings 22.

In that case, to be sure,
Jehoshaphat, fortunate to escape with his life in that battle, allied
with idolatrous Ahab, was king in a theocracy. That however does not end the
parallel, but merely begins it. In each case, there is a nation which has
much to say ABOUT GOD (this President Bush, for example makes claim to be a
Christian, just as Jehoshaphat was undoubtedly a man of and servant of the
LORD), and a long national history of comparative closeness to God. In each
case, on the other hand, there is a gross misalliance with what is starkly
contrary to the Lord, and this in a way to suggest that it is somehow a
spiritual battle. This combination and synthesis, this sin and syncretism is so
provocative that one can only tremble. Already America has been hit, and now she hunches
lest more slashings come on the exposed under-belly.

And why exposed ?
Principally because liberty and tolerance are practised, instead of
dictatorship such as seems near the mark in some Moslem lands, far from
democratic, with vested religious and commercial interests aplenty ? Not at
all. It is principally because the ONLY SAFETY has been abandoned in PRACTICE
at the military and political level to a quite disastrous extent. It is a
perilous place, at the outset, and what is antigod now has become an ally! When
will the lesson be found ? When it is too late ? Perhaps.

In World War II, the same
miasmic mistake occurred. The dictatorial, people slaying Stalin became Uncle
Joe, pardner for Uncle Sam, and how they rushed to the kill, while the
Cold War was born in their allied arms, and much of Europe was only
part-payment over more than one half of a century, for the fearful blight.

And why a blight ? Fear of
man instead of fear of God, quite simply. It is in Amos 4 and 7 that you see
the measurement of God: the successive rebuke, reproof, appeal, the readiness
to hear intercession, and then in Amos 7, the insistence that if the wall
REFUSES to be upright, it will fall!

Not at all "free among the
dead" is the
people in such a case, if they will but put aside their glaring moral atrocities, outrageous
defiances and legalised follies, making a stand if not as a nation for God,
then at least a people who war on defilements that invade the nation and render
it in perils unknown and follies innumerable. There is hope in holiness, and in
national SEVERANCE from the follies of Islam as any sort of ally. Is the nation
to define which religions it accepts, which are good and re-define goodness,
ex-God as some sort of latter-day Moses, in competition with the United
Nations, housed in New York. And can it be entirely disregarded
that it is precisely in that city disadorned with that immoral atrocity, the
United Nations prestigious Headquarters, that the September 11 attack came!

This permissiveness for new
morals and new ways with the world's children, so that new brotherhoods without
Christ are directly taught and power to implement thunders in the background
(see Mystery of Iniquity), is itself a direct
affront to the Almighty! per discourtesy of the UN.

The Psalmist in Ps. 88,
however, did not lose faith in God, in surveying his awesome scene, but
he CALLED on Him. You cannot call on two gods simultaneously, when they deny,
decry and contradict one another. That is mere chatter and verbal licence,
abuse of the gift of speech, and of the divine donation of mind to man! HOW LONG, asked Elijah, WILL YOU HALT BETWEEN
TWO OPINIONS! If the LORD be God, serve Him, but if Baal, then follow him (I Kings 18:21). There were many Baals
(just a term for 'lords'), in ancient times just as now, their stained 'glory'
for hearts intoxicated with innovation, inured with folly, implanted with
rebellion, installed without reason, replacing the truth with immoral fiction).
In Psalm 89, following the personal travails of Psalm 88, we see the
answer is NOTHING LESS THAN THE MESSIAH.

Is it in vain that so many
in so many cities for so long have appreciated with joy the apt melodies and
beautiful compilation from the Bible, made by George Handel, as his life came
nearer to its end on earth, and his sight became more difficult ? Is it to be
just as a "lovely song" they people listen to such things ? (as in
the days of Ezekiel, before utter ruin came to the nation, in his own days -
Ezekiel 33:32).

"And lo, you are to them as a
very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an
instrument: for they hear your words, but they do not perform them!"

said the
Lord to the prophet who spoke and was not heeded.

Spiritual squalor must be
severed. In Christ, it can be. The Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the only
Surgeon in this business. The nails that pierced Him, He bore; YOU must bear
the scalpel which severs sin and the Saviour who gives life and abundance.
Repentance is a deep thing; it is not a mere mood or affliction of the heart,
far less a mere intrusion into the mind. It is a change so radical, that what
appeared desirable, or even tolerable, is detested; what was admired is
abhorred; what was source of pleasure is occasion for grief! Paul speaks of
this in II Corinthians 7:9-10. Let us hear this.

"Now
I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to
repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer
loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to
salvation not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For
observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it
produced in you, what clearing of yourselves what indignation, what fear, what
vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you prove yourself
to be clear in this matter..."

Foul as
were the errors at that time in the church at Corinth, the matters were addressed,
reality obtruded, was included, hearts were tested, errors corrected, evil
purged. Then there is to be an entire filling of the heart with the Spirit of
God, which comes through faith in Christ (Ephesians 5:18-22). Now, nothing is barred,
no loss too great, no admonition unacceptable, provided only it is in the word
of the living God, no task to titanic! You see the entire dedication in Paul.
What is wrong with that ? Is the current passion for physical health (perhaps
not least because of the justified fear of death, in the hearts of the lost,
though there is also the moderate desire for good reasons, in many) to be an
end in itself ? Is the good running of the machinery to be the prelude to the
damnation of the person whose it is ? or is the heart physical to be kept
ticking longer, while sins linger, and salvation is distanced!

Are means to be GOD and purposes to be puny ?

Are
men to solder all their lives and never discover what it is that they are ...
creating!

IS THE CHILD 'FATHER OF THE MAN',OR THE MAN
FATHER OF CHILDISHNESS ?Where FATHERHOOD
really lies!

It used to be said of a
particularly naughty child, that he/she was 'creating'. That is, such a scene
and such a scenario was so far from the right way, that it was a kind of
creation, a malady that afflicted good sense, marred good living, a novel that
was a bad one! not worth reading.

Man does not need to go to
childhood to find the case however. Modern man has ben 'creating' for a very
long time, in the woeful blindness and blunders of philosophic pantomime,
religious riot, cunning revilings*1 of
Christ by no small number of misled clergy, equipped as well for the church, as
the September 11 terrorists for the land they mocked!

Samson is a good type for
some of this diffidence before spiritual duty. Brave (Judges 3-6) ? But of
course; misled by lust, naturally, very naturally. Lust is of many types,
easily categorised into the mental, the spiritual, the moral and the physical.
With Samson it was physical. Endowed already, by divine prediction and
preparation, with sublime strength, he allowed ridiculous evils in is life, so
that although warned many times, he was betrayed by his forbidden woman Delilah
(wrong because Philistine, and hence with heart in the enemy camp, and wrong
because mere fornication), with such a ruse that made the poor,misled man look
more like an erratic child than the full measure of his race.

Passion unsubdued,
subdues.

Yet in Samson there was far
more than lust, even virtually idolatrised lust, dulling all other sense. After
he had been captured, by loss of strength in ways violating his commitment to
God, he was made a thing of labour, of amusement, of delighted gossip and a
spectacle, by his captors. In this the Philistines were themselves most unwise
(Proverbs 24:18). Pride and self-exaltation is not a part of the spectacle
attractive to the God who made man, who being created, needs humility to boast
in the Maker, not the work which is himself.

Samson, goaded and made a
mockery in a vast meeting in a sports stadium complex, feeling for the great
pillars, broke them and killed thousands, including the mockers, the elite and
the lordly.

He was willing to die to
complete his task, which was to glorify God in the deliverance of Israel. This, in the end, he did; but what
needless suffering he inflicted on many, but probably on none more than on
himself, except for those with no hope and no way, trusting in themselves
(Ephesians 2:1-12)!

Where then is the place of
Fatherhood ? Is it at last, in the slithering slippages ... of mortal man ?No, it is neither the child
who is father of the man, being a site for greater powers and resources than
his; nor man, in the end of it all, who is the final father of childishness,
but a saucy spiritual severance, that clouded inheritance from the engines of
evil. It is neither category which ultimately counts.

It is God who is by
creation, and spiritually may become, the spiritual and lively Father of a man
or woman, or indeed and not least by any means, a child! Yet when a man finds
God as his Father, he HAS to become a child, far from childish, but far also
from a manly mackerel, splashing his vigour with piscine panache. He has to
RECOGNISE his Father, LOVE his Father, realise his NEED of his Father, find the
WILL of His Father, and rejoice in the stability, strength and cleanness of
heart and soul, mind and strength, so gained, when all being fathered, is
likewise fostered in its due and true proportions and design (cf. Isaiah
33:5-6,17).

While Samson's revival was
too late, except for a final account, his being in and through actual death,
David, the King, showed in his youth, a spiritually induced self-control
which is a relish and rejoicing. He also had to disassemble any self-reliance,
that anodyne of actuality, and take his place at the family Table of Truth.
Thus when a mere lad, he was informed of Goliath's boastful assault on the name
of the Lord, and met it in battle, slaying the giant, very precisely in the
name of the Lord, with a sling shot. God was the source of strength, the name
of God the source of the stimulus, to secure for it the honour which was - and
is - its due (Revelation 5). This reliance was ruthless in truth, as much as
the Islamic jihads are ruthless against it, inventing grounds for reckless
immorality, and daring like Goliath, to bring in the name of God to debase it
with their inhuman mouthings, maulings and boasts.

Later in life (I Samuel
24,26), David twice spared the very king, derailed in mind, misdirected in
spirit, jealous in thought, who sought with thousands of national troops, to
DESTROY him! He did it, once again, because the name of the LORD was involved.
Did not God Himself have Saul, his oppressor, anointed king (before his
spiritual downfall!) ? Then who was David, murderously sought or otherwise, to
seek vengeance on, or indeed even safety from that King! So did the young man
reason, concerning his heavenly Father, His honour and His dignity.

This incessant - or almost
incessant - putting of the honour in WORD where it was - and is - IN FACT, was
a distinguishing characteristic of David, the man 'after God's own
heart'.

It was just the same with
Elijah the prophet (I Kings 17ff.), whose confrontation with Baal-worshippers
was short, sharp and decisive, one man against all, or nearly all, in a meeting
with hundreds of the false priests.

It is this which is one of
the chief ingredients in any revival of true religion. It is a matter FIRST of
TRUSTING GOD, and then DOING what He says BECAUSE you trust Him. It is therefore
a matter of FINDING SALVATION where it is, in Christ crucified, and POWER where
it is to be located, in Christ resurrected physically from the dead, and USING
IT, not for that matter, in your own interests, but in HIS, according to His
will and plan for your life which BY FAITH, you have to find out!

Did Samson give up because
of his folly and sin ? Not at all, he kept at it.

Was he finished because his
life was captured ? Not at all, he waited, he endured and then, given
opportunity, with rising faith, he acted and accomplished wonders at sacrifice
of his own life. In his case, it was physical sacrifice; but many a sacrifice
is not to physical death, but to spiritual functionality, which brings not
less, but more abundant life! Indeed, no sacrifice, no spirituality! It is not
that our sacrifice BUYS ANYTHING; but godliness means that merely
independent desires become irrelevant.

It is NOT FOR ONESELF that
one lives, so that it is for and from the Lord that one finds the reasons and
springs for action. David buried, to all rational speculation - without taking
GOD into account - his regal hopes not once but twice; and perilously risked
them a third time with Goliath, because the hope of being king was not the
point. Being king was the will and would be the work of GOD, and hence the name
of God needed to be honoured, since... he TRUSTED in Him!

This is sincerity and
integrity. It is also life (Matthew 16:24-27). It is not really so
paradoxical: you give up a wrongly directed life, under sinfully improper
management, as if you were God, or centre, or the main thing, or your views, or
visions, or ideals, being of yourself and your image, persona and penetration.
Instead, you take on one which is ordained, authorised, blessed, refreshed,
known, enabled and loved by the God whom you love since there is none anywhere
nearly as good, powerful, wonderful, and since moreover there is only one who
is your actual Creator, who knows you infinitely, though you be merely finite,
and has loved you without limit.

Is
it so surprising, then that you find life abundant in this way, and have to
send on extended vacation, at a death camp, your pride and derring do, your
desire for this or that as if you were a godlet!

THE FATALITIES OF FAITHLESSNESS

It is in this way that a
nation, or a family, or a hearth, or an individual, or a church fainting on its
way, being spoiled by vocal unbelievers, may be revived. TRUST in the Lord, and
all that goes with it. Cease to trust in your own wisdom! is this not a
veritable key-note in the Piano Concerto of Peace from the Lord,
the composer! Look at Proverbs 3:3-8.

"Let not mercy and truth
forsake you;

Bind them around
your neck,Write them on
the tablet of your heart,And so find
favor and high esteemIn the sight of
God and man.

"Trust in the Lord with all
your heart,

And lean not on
your own understanding;In all your ways
acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct your paths.

Do not be wise in your own eyes;

Fear the Lord
and depart from evil.It will be
health to your flesh,And strength to
your bones."

Look at the
opposite when the ways of the Lord are annealed in the agencies of flesh and
desire, carnality and pride, self-will and self-sufficiency, in Isaiah
48:16ff.:

“Come
near to Me, hear this:I have not
spoken in secret from the beginning;From the time
that it was, I was there.And now the Lord
God and His SpiritHave sent Me.”

"Thus
says the Lord, your Redeemer,The Holy One of
Israel:

'I
am the Lord your God,Who teaches you
to profit,Who leads you by
the way you should go.

'Oh, that you
had heeded My commandments!Then your peace
would have been like a river,And your
righteousness like the waves of the sea.

'Your
descendants also would have been like the sand,And the
offspring of your body like the grains of sand;His name would
not have been cut offNor destroyed
from before Me.' ”

The
situation has not changed, for the nation, the individual or the family. It is
true that a nation is no longer at this time, going to be directly theocratic;
but its tenor can be moral, its underlying commitment Christian and not
clouded, and its liberties bestowed on its citizens, not inclusive of moral
revulsion, spiritual idolatry or mental migrations from truth, in the interests
of irrational substitutes for rationality, made by means of reason! At least,
we would not expect folly to be made mandatory, as some of Clinton's remarks came so near to
suggesting, or even folly to be so commended that its detection and exposure
would, by some national leader, be made a subject of loathing! And what follows
that in the process of multiplied events ? law, a law to prevent loathing, so
that sin becomes mandatory for those who will follow such defiled legal
diatribes.

Would even Sodom blush, or Gomorrah be ashamed ? Romans 1 makes clear
the direction of things, as does, for the end, II Timothy 3, and we need not be
surprised, if this is their end, that such commencements are eve now appearing!

What then ? A nation can
CHOOSE AS A NATION, certain standards, certain exclusions, if not of free
thought, important for criticism, then of corruption in circulating drugs, of
the endorsement of squalid sexualities or the marauding militancy of mere
force, a farce that loves to substitute for faith.

This is precisely why Australia also is in some peril. In the
absurd name of multi-culturalism, this nation is allowing and disallowing so
much, as if being a mongrel, it were determined to admit nothing else. 'Being
a mongrel ?' The term was, it may be noted, hypothetical. What it is, it
is; but this action is AS IF it were a mongrel determined to have no character!
The horror of it is simple: in fact, a Christian background had vast part in
the development of this nation AND its famed liberties. Christ does not summon
to die or believe as some do. He invites.

Now as if the migration of
many from many nations in some way affected morals, or the past, or the design
of man, or the future , in terms of standards and truth, as if truth were
non-existent, and in all truth this non-existence were being affirmed in the
usual ludicrous way, the nation is being encouraged to become ANYTHING.

ANY anything ? Far from it.
It must believe in anything, or act as if it did. Anyone must be able to bring
in ANY standards readily, in the field of morals and religion, since otherwise
the United Nations will consider that the brotherhood of ALL men is being
impugned. Children should, we are told, be brought up with these concepts, as a
DUTY! (See Mystery of Iniquity!). In Victoria, it becoming an offence to deal
freely with religion, in case someone be offended; and you can be sued if you
indicate things, whatever your PURPOSE, which cause certain traumas or offences
in the listener.

What a decree nisi with
truth is this!

In fact, if this nation is
ashamed, just like the USA, to bring in the actual foundations which led in so
many identifiable ways to strength, industry and invention, to stability and
law, to liberties all but unthinkable in many lands, and distances itself from
its past in terms of some sort of conclusion from the future, a melting pot of
morals, a spiritual made-to-order suiting clothing the whole, what is that
doing but showing a fit of such ingratitude and contra-realism as to make
angels tremble! Tolerance of varied ways of life is one thing, and commendable
in measure; but seeking to make a STANDARD of reference of anything, is no way
to honour something.

Is God inconvenient, then,
even as a standard in a land of freedom ? even in morals ? Is anything to be
god, and God to be on leave!

So be it ? What of the next
Coral Sea ? and what if the USA is otherwise engaged ? Is the god
of anything to be called on, while subtle and more 'advanced' arrangements are
made with the moral mafia, the outlandish freakishness of philosophy, which of
course has a branch in political affairs, while the land becomes ... anything ?

What has anything to offer
? No God, no truth, no permissions lest somebody be offended by anything, the wrong
anything! Is there no insurance by anything ? Is trust to be confronted,
dismissed while the countless valorous actions of people who trusted God to
found Australia and to develop it (despite many errors of many kinds), is now
because of some hypo-logical liaison with anything, to be asked to resign,
while self-confidence arrays its loathsome littleness of soul, blindness of
spirit, and takes on the universe and its Maker, in the interests of ... ?

Of what!

So do the nations succumb
so readily to the speechifying of nothings, the allure of anythings, and
leaving God, find their place in the dust. It can come very quickly! It is
never by any chance, by any chance! Chance is merely a word, which has nothing
to do with the realities, at the ultimate level. It is the absence of RELEVANT
purpose to an operation, in terms of that to which it is exposed. With God,
there is NEVER the absence of relevant purpose, since He is not absent-minded!

It is time to repent. It is
time for Israel, for varied Gentile nations, inheritors of wonders from the
goodness of the Lord, for varied churches, misusing and misleading in their
turmoils of philosophical invasion, so readily suffered and witlessly confused with
the word of the Lord, till they are all confounded. It is time to seek revival
of life, enthralled with reviving hope. Indeed, Revelation 13 exhibits that
this will be a huge disaster for many in this world: only those who for the
word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, are ready to live or die
remaining in their right place... And even that ? It is only till they too are
removed, that they linger, as Christ depicted so clearly (Matthew 24:45ff.,
Revelation 11:12, 12:11), and with such warnings*2.

Then the void is on its
own, the abyss can study its navel, and the world can consider its whirling, as
the wrath of God makes manifest its putridity. There is nothing worse than just
judgment, unrelieved, needlessly received and wantonly pursued. It comes
(Revelation 19:15). The renounced remedy Himself is best judge, since He made
Himself available to avoid it, and that in love. It is He, the Word of God,
then, whom we see thus coming...

There is in all this, no fate, no
fate at all*3, only divine disfavour through
disbelief.

There is however, in the
arrival of revival, a relish as of roses, a savour of reality, access to rationality
in its awesome origins from God, the dower of spirituality, the power of
godliness, which brings refreshment of heart, restores the mind to its place,
takes meaning from the shadows and supplies the spirit of man with light (cf.
Amos 4:13).